Just as we all thought, alesis did have a trick up their sleeve for namm 2016 with their new flagship strike module no details as of yet but more to follow. Pls feel free to add on to this post as info becomes available.

NAMM 2016: Alesis is expanding its roster of electronic drum kits with the Strike range, which the company says contains "the first-ever electronic kits to deliver the very best of both acoustic drums and electronic drums in terms of feel, playability, looks, sound quality and control."

NAMM 2016: Alesis is expanding its roster of electronic drum kits with the Strike range, which the company says contains "the first-ever electronic kits to deliver the very best of both acoustic drums and electronic drums in terms of feel, playability, looks, sound quality and control."

I'm not impressed for the most part so far. The only parts I'm really interested in are the kick drum, cymbals and module. I do find the following claim to be bullshit but from what I understand now , it seems I misunderstood what Alesis was trying to say.

"the first-ever electronic kits to deliver the very best of both acoustic drums and electronic drums in terms of feel, playability, looks, sound quality and control."

Acoustic Properties- It seems like they plan on using these as acoustics in part, however each pad size while varying in diameter all seem to have the same depth. So it could function as a travel kit I suppose, nothing to record with though or to play live with.

Feel- I've tried Alesis mesh head pads before and they feel hard, never really liked them. Granted I have never tried the mesh heads alone without cones touching them. As for cymbals, I honestly don't know if they are metal or rubber. The pad sizes seem to be 14" snare, 14" kick drum, 10" 12" rack toms and another 12" or 13" floor tom. I would expect at-least a 14" floor tom, the rest of the sizes minus the kick and floor tom are fine though. I would like to see the kick being at-least 18". I think they are rubber since metal cymbals are much thinner. That being said, it doesn't mean they are bad cymbals, infact this is one of the parts that intrigue me the most, however brass electronic cymbals are the best feeling electronic cymbals period followed closely my Roland(IMO)

Playability I can't judge this except with the mesh head pads which was covered above.

Looks The only way this looks acoustic is by the wooden shells and maybe so with the metal cymbals. The shells are only probably about 5" deep though. The crashes appear to be 16" the hi-hat 13" or 14" and the ride 18". Not bad sizes but I really would like to see a 20" ride and 18" crash for both feel and look, AND a splash and china.

sound quality I doubt Alesis modules will contain the sounds able to rival VSTi plugins such as SD2 or BFD3, no module on the market can, the closest being 2box.

control Not quite sure what they mean by this. Control of feel? Control of positioning? Control of Sound? This could mean many things.

I am most curious about the module you can find posts about what people think the next big Alesis module have in detail somewhere on the fourm. Even if the module can can load samples, how many samples can they load? Will it be enough to load VSTi samples? The Yamaha Dtx502 can import samples but not enough for a drumkit.

Khes74 - you have been a longtime valued member and respect your knowledge you have given to this community. Than you for that.

I don't think the statement "the first-ever electronic kits to deliver the very best of both acoustic drums and electronic drums in terms of feel, playability, looks, sound quality and control." was meant that they could be played as an acoustic kit. I think they meant in terms of look and feel. I could be wrong though.

I know you can sample your own sounds or load .wav files, but not sure how much it will hold. If it's an SD card, it will depend on the size it will allow.

I am going to wait to see what the specs are on it. I asked a buddy at another booth at NAMM to swing over there to take some snapshots of it. He also said he knows a couple of the dudes at InMusic(owners or Alesis). I told him to let them know I have a DM10 I would be willing to trade for one..lol

In short some new facts: It's a set with acoustic drumkit *feeling*, not for acoustic playing. The shells have multiple wooden layers and "new", bigger dual rims. The cymbals have 3 zones, are coated with a special developed rubber in a new "hammered" look and have bigger bells. Alesis claims that they are much more quiet than older models.

The new Strike module has a SD slot and USB connection for (beside usual MIDI I/O) loading sounds onto the module. It has a 4,3" LED colour display. It comes with a dedicated editor software to customize own sounds into multi-velocitiy-layered or round-robin sounds and can edit, load and save complete kits.

Let's see. You haven't seen them, haven't heard them, haven't touched them and haven't played them but you're sure they're shit. Great review!JimmyB

I haven't seen/heard/played them in person no, nobody has except those whom have been to this years NAMM and Alesis employees. My comments come from what I can see from the photos, this thread and what I have learned throughout the years. .

No I haven't heard them for the reasons listed above. I just haven't found ANY module that has better sounds than a quality VSTi plugin. I state this when it comes to all modules, not just Alesis.

I have played Alesis mesh drum pads on the the Crimson which I played at Guitar Center a few months back. I will admit they feel better than the stock realhead pads. Still felt too hard for my liking.

As for cymbals I stated "...it doesn't mean they are bad cymbals". I don't know squat about how they feel, nor did I say they were bad cymbals. Infact, I'm quite interested in the cymbals, they seem to be the first Alesis cymbals with 360 degree strike zone, something Roland, Yamaha and 2box have been doing for much longer.

I never commented on the playability except on the mesh pads which I ASSUME are the same as the Crimson kit. Keyword here being "ASSUME" aka speculation. Of course I have only played the sizes found on the Crimson kit.

It wasn't a review and I never said they were shit. I stated that their claim that "the first-ever electronic kits to deliver the very best of both acoustic drums and electronic drums in terms of feel, playability, looks, sound quality and control." was bullshit. Apparently I misunderstood what Alesis meant by that statement though.

Khes74 - you have been a longtime valued member and respect your knowledge you have given to this community. Than you for that.

I don't think the statement "the first-ever electronic kits to deliver the very best of both acoustic drums and electronic drums in terms of feel, playability, looks, sound quality and control." was meant that they could be played as an acoustic kit. I think they meant in terms of look and feel. I could be wrong though.

I know you can sample your own sounds or load .wav files, but not sure how much it will hold. If it's an SD card, it will depend on the size it will allow.

I am going to wait to see what the specs are on it. I asked a buddy at another booth at NAMM to swing over there to take some snapshots of it. He also said he knows a couple of the dudes at InMusic(owners or Alesis). I told him to let them know I have a DM10 I would be willing to trade for one..lol

I'm actually not that knowledgeable when it comes to e-drums anymore. I do try to keep up on all E-drums brands though. My specialty is drum hardware and the variables which affect drum and cymbal sounds. Thank you though.

Yes please do get some photos though and best of luck with trading in your Dm10

I actually traded in my Dm10 Studio kit for a Pro-Kit because my module broke and the only way they could replace it was by sending me an entire kit. Later they send me another Dm10 module(for the one that was broken).

In short some new facts: It's a set with acoustic drumkit *feeling*, not for acoustic playing. The shells have multiple wooden layers and "new", bigger dual rims. The cymbals have 3 zones, are coated with a special developed rubber in a new "hammered" look and have bigger bells. Alesis claims that they are much more quiet than older models.

The new Strike module has a SD slot and USB connection for (beside usual MIDI I/O) loading sounds onto the module. It has a 4,3" LED colour display. It comes with a dedicated editor software to customize own sounds into multi-velocitiy-layered or round-robin sounds and can edit, load and save complete kits.

Sounds pretty interesting to me....

Multiple drum layers? Thats a radical new idea (sarcasm). I wonder why they included that in the article.The wood is most likely poplar or basswood which are cheap to produce.

Multi-velocity-layered? Isn't that something the Dm10 has?

The three zones are apparently only on the ride cymbal.

What I really want to know is if the switch zones have velocity and if the module supports velocity on the switch zone.

I haven't been on here in forever, but the Alesis newsletter got me back to talk about this kit. Didn't see this earlier in the thread, but on the youtube vid posted above, one of the commenters there said this would be about $2,500 USD.

Hope you've all been doing well!

Logged

Here this whole time I thought you were the troll with a heart of gold. Instead you're just a troll with a real troll's heart.

Multiple drum layers? Thats a radical new idea (sarcasm). I wonder why they included that in the article.The wood is most likely poplar or basswood which are cheap to produce.

Multi-velocity-layered? Isn't that something the Dm10 has?

The three zones are apparently only on the ride cymbal.

What I really want to know is if the switch zones have velocity and if the module supports velocity on the switch zone.

Some of the redundant advertising is likely for new folks who don't know anything about what the Alesis kits can do..I imagine.. so they're marketing this for us folk as upgrades and we know most of the features but there'd be a lot of newcomers who have no clue about layering or dynamic articulation etc

"Internal memory is 8 Gig. Better acoustic drum samples have 40 velocity layers with, get this, 60 horizontal layers per sample to support the round robin feature. The hi-hat is 2 plates on a stand like a VH-12/13."

Some of the redundant advertising is likely for new folks who don't know anything about what the Alesis kits can do..I imagine.. so they're marketing this for us folk as upgrades and we know most of the features but there'd be a lot of newcomers who have no clue about layering or dynamic articulation etc

Didn't know that the good ol' DM10 had a PC-based editor from Alesis that could customize and upload your own samples and sounds into module's memory. Must have overseen this...was it in the box?